Jonathan D. Sarna’s provocative new book, “When General Grant Expelled theJews,” is exactly what it sounds like: an account of how Gen. Ulysses S.Grant issued an order to expel Jews from their homes in the midst of theCivil War. Anyone seeking to rock the Passover Seder with political debatewill find the perfect conversation piece in Mr. Sarna’s account of thisstartling American story.There are good reasons that the document known as General Orders No. 11has remained only a footnote to Civil War history. Argument endures aboutwhat Grant meant, how much damage his order inflicted and how significantthis act of explicit anti-Semitism really was. But the incontrovertiblepart of the story is that the perception of profiteering in Paducah, Ky.,and his tendency to use the words “profiteer” and “Jew” interchangeably,provoked a written outburst from Grant, commander of the Territory of theDepartment of the Tennessee, which included Paducah.On Dec. 17, 1862, Grant issued the order that read: “The Jews, as a classviolating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Departmentand also department orders, are hereby expelled from this departmentwithin 24 hours from the receipt of this order.” While this mandateconformed to Grant’s pattern of associating Jews with illicit businessactivities, the exact reasons for his action are anything but clear. Whatis clear is that on Jan. 4, 1863, one week from the day (Dec. 28, 1862) onwhich Paducah’s Jews were actually expelled, President Abraham Lincolnordered Grant to revoke the controversial edict.What tangible damage did the expulsion do? Very little, as far as Mr.Sarna, chief historian at the National Museum of American Jewish Historyand the co-editor of “Jews and the Civil War: A Reader” can tell. He canprovide no individual accounts of families fleeing the order, no more thanfour affidavits about the expulsion and no reports of physical hardshipbeyond those who claimed they had been jailed briefly, treated roughly orforbidden from changing out of wet clothes. It is not the magnitude of theincident that makes it so enduring, ugly or willfully ignored.The reaction of one Jewish merchant in Paducah, Cesar Kaskel, touched offa firestorm. He took off on what Mr. Sarna calls a “Paul Revere-like rideto Washington.” He alerted and roused the press. And he managed, through acongressman, to gain access to Lincoln, who “turned out to have noknowledge whatsoever of the order, for it had not reached Washington.”Here is an excerpt from the overblown conversation Kaskel claimed to havehad with Lincoln:Lincoln: “And so the children of Israel were driven from the happy land ofCanaan?”Kaskel: “Yes, and that is why we have come unto Father Abraham’s bosom,asking protection.”Lincoln: “And this protection they shall have at once.”The real effects of Grant’s action took the form of similarly extreme,sometimes hyperbolic responses from American Jews. Suddenly everythingabout them, including the question of exactly what “American Jews” meansin terms of allegiance, was part of the debate. Mr. Sarna delivers acareful, warts-and-all accounting of the ugliness surrounding all sides ofthis incident, right down to quoting the fearful, competitive, evenhostile attitude some Jews held toward newly freed slaves. Lincoln’sEmancipation Proclamation had arrived on Jan. 1, 1863, right between theenforcement and revocation of Grant’s order.“Historians, understandably, have played down this fear, not wishing tobesmirch the reputations of some of American Jewry’s most illustriousleaders whose words, in retrospect, are painful to read,” Mr. Sarnawrites.“Painful” is an understatement.One of the most egregious came from Isaac Leeser, editor of The Occident,a Jewish publication: “Why are tears shed for the sufferings of theAfrican in his bondage, by which his moral condition has been immenselyimproved, in spite of all that may be alleged to the contrary, whereas forthe Hebrews every one has words of contempt or acts of violence?”But it is the long-range repercussions of Grant’s order, and the Jews’enduring anger about it, that prompt the most disturbing aspects of Mr.Sarna’s story. When Grant ran for president in 1868, his treatment of Jewsbecame campaign fodder for Democrats seeking to defeat him. The Jewishvote was not numerically large enough to sway the election; still, theissue became highly inflammatory. Vengeful rhetoric against Grant soundseven worse now than it did at the time, as in “General Grant and theJews,” a pamphlet that threatened that Jews would vote “as a class,” justas Grant had described them:“We are numerous, we are wealthy, we are influential, we are diffused overthe whole continent, we are as one family; wherever our influence reaches,every Jew — no matter of what political party — every Jew, with the votershe can command, will endeavor to defeat, and with God’s blessing, willdefeat you!” This argument is an anti-Semite’s dream. It may also be ananti-Semite’s handiwork, since the pamphlet was ascribed to a pseudonymousauthor and signed “A Jew.”Grant had a legitimate some-of-my-best-friends-are-Jewish case to make. Heappointed Jews to some prominent positions in his administration. He alsoinveighed on behalf of human rights when Jews in Russia and Romania were,like those from Paducah, threatened with expulsion. And he attended thededication of a synagogue in Washington, surprising other attendees bysitting through a three-hour ceremony. Grant also let it be known that hisoriginal order “would never have been issued if it had not beentelegraphed the moment it was penned, and without reflection.”Mr. Sarna’s book is part of a prestigious series matching prominent Jewishwriters with intriguingly fine-tuned topics. (Also published orforthcoming: “Burnt Books,” “Judah Maccabee,” “The Dairy Restaurant” and“Mrs. Freud.”) One of the book’s purposes is to put the Grant episode intoits proper context. To that end Mr. Sarna places undue emphasis on thenarrow question of whether Grant ultimately “earned” the support andforgiveness of Jews. But he also asks how any voter balances self-interestwith patriotic conviction if the two are at odds — as they were when theGeneral Grant who expelled Jewish citizens became Candidate Grant,courting Jewish votes for the presidency.“No final decision ever resolved this debate,” he writes.Lee PerlmanMassachusetts Instituteof Technology

1 comment:

I lived in Jackson, Mississippi, the capital of that state, which was captured by Grant's army on June 14, 1863. The Beth Israel Synagogue, which was a beautiful, round brick building, showed that Jews were an integral part of the community of a Confederate Mississippi, was burned when the Federal soldiers entered the city. The President of the congregation was a Sgt. in the 6th Mississippi Infantry, was with his Confederate army, marching toward Vicksburg, but the army would stop at Edwards Station, just east of the Big Black River, the last natural barrier between the Federals and an investiture of Vicksburg in a siege. A battle would be fought there, known to the Confederates as the Battle of Baker's Creek while the Yankees called it The Battle of Champion's Hill. I would not care to say what the actual position of the commanding general was toward the people of Jackson as a whole, or the Jewish population specifically, but his men, forbidden to burn the town, did burn the Beth Israel Synagogue. Its congregation survived the war and rebuilt and is still present, though at a new location. In the late 1960s a racist klansman bombed the front of the Beth Israel Synagogue. He also killed Medgar Evers and was free for many years before being turned over and charged with the Evers murder. He died in prison.